Revision as of 07:23, 27 October 2011

Creatures that Defy Evolution is a three volume apologist documentary where Dr. Martin (A dentist) attempts to provide examples of animal species whose existence cannot be explained by the Theory of Evolution. The host of the series, David Hames, was killed in the 2010 Haiti Earthquake.

Volume 1 Walkthrough

The scene opens with Hames walking through a rose garden, and he asks "Have you ever looked at the beauty and intricacies of an animal, bird or fish, and asked yourself, "Could this really have been created through a process of evolution? Could time plus chance come together all the beauty we see in the world?" Hi, I'm David Hames, and in the next few minutes we're going to take a close look at some animals that are going to shatter that very idea.

Comment: Hames overlooks that cultivated garden roses look designed because plant breeders designed them so humans would like them, this is similar to the Banana fallacy. Most types of Garden roses have far more petals than they need to attract pollinating insects but people like them that way.
Hames fails to make mention of various unpleasant species including the African eyeworm, any god that created the nastier parasites and other pathogens is clearly malevolent. He also displays' the apologists' common misuse of 'chance', and seems to use the Evolution is only a theory argument.

Fade out to title sequence showing various species of animals, and an All-Seeing Eye.

Hames (now in a zoo) "I want to introduce you to Dr. Jobe Martin. Dr. Martin has had a very interesting background. He's been a college professor, and a dentist. He even served on the dental crew for President Johnson's' Air Force One and the presidential fleet. Well, for the past 20 years, Dr. Martin has been lecturing students on incredible creatures that defy evolution. But it wasn't always this way. Dr. Martin, out of a scientific and medical background, once believed in the Theory of Evolution."

Martin "Evolution, as I was taught, It all started with a thing called the Big Bang. They say this Big Bang went 'Kaboom!' And shot out Hydrogen gas, mostly, and the gas somehow turned to dust, and the dust condensed down to Planet Earth. Evolutionists say it started dry, then over millions of years, volcanic activity produced the water, and then in some little pond of this water somewhere on Planet Earth, this inorganic chemicals got together, and they were zapped by some kind of x-ray or something else, and all of a sudden you have this little spec of life. and they say that was about three and a half billion years ago. And the that little spec of life somehow over about 3 billion years, became the first cell, which was somewhere around 600 million years ago. And then that progressively became beautiful you."

fade out

Hames "Dr. Martin's traditional scientific background would go through an evolution, rather a revolution, as he joined the staff as a professor at Baylor Dental College. This was the beginning of the evolution of a creationist.

Argument against Evolution of Bombardier Beetle

Martin "And so in the fall of 1971, I went to Baylor in Dallas, and gave my first lecture. It was on the evolution of the tooth. And I talked about these fish scales gradually migrated into the mouth and became teeth, and a couple of my students came to me after class that day and said "Dr. Martin have you ever investigated the claims of Creation Science?" Well that was 1971, and I'd never even head of it. At that point, I'd been a Christian for about 5 years, and so I'm thinking to myself "Where are these guys coming from? I've never heard of this." and so I said "Sure, I'll look into this with you." and I'm thinking, kind of as a cocky young professor, "I'll blow these guys away!" Well, they asked me to start studying the assumptions that the evolutionists make. And in all my years-eight years of scientific education- I'd never had a single professor tell me about an assumption. And, so we started looking at the assumptions, and I began to realize something: They're making some claims here, that really, the assumptions aren't valid. When they tell us "Rocks are very old," and all these kinds of things, and then they asked me to start studying some animals, and see if I thought that animal could evolve. Well, the first thing that we really studied together was this little bug called a Bombardier Beetle. And this little insect is about a half inch long and it mixes chemicals that explode! So I began to think "Okay, now how would that evolve?" Let's say if evolution is true, and you're evolving along here, and you don't have a defense mechanism. Because that is the defense mechanism of the bug. So if evolution is true, it had to somehow evolve that, so let's say it coming along here...well the first time it evolves the explosion, What does it do to the bug? Boom! Just splattered your bug. Okay, so splattered bug pieces don't evolve! So how could this have happened? Well it doesn't blow itself up, it has another little factory inside itself that manufactures chemicals-a chemical-that acts as a catalyst so that when you squirt that chemical in with these other chemicals that are like a neutral and you get your explosion. Well the first time it manufactured that little chemical, here it goes again, blew itself up again! But it doesn't. Why? Well, because it has like an asbestos-lined firing chamber. And even then it would blow itself up, if it didn't have somewhere for the explosion to go, so it has twin tail tubes. And it can aim these tail tubes all the way up, out the side, out the front...Let's say a spider is coming up toward its side and it doesn't have time to turn around and shoot, it can just take it's little gun turret aim it out there and shoot. Thus the explosion on this little bug all you hear--if you're listening as a human-- you hear this pop! But scientists have now put that explosion in slow motion. And it's like "rl-rl-rl!" It like a thousand sequential little explosions, but they're so fast, all we hear is one pop. And so you think "Well, why would that be?" Well, that was a curious thing for the scientists that studied this little bug--alot of them at Cornell University, some other places-- and what they discovered was that if it was just one big pop, the little bug, if he's shooting, like, a spider, let's say over here, and he goes "whomp! Bang!" and shoots it, he's gonna pop himself right outta' there! It's like lighting a burner on a jet engine! So he's outta' there! But as long as it is a sequential explosion, with his little legs he can hang on. How would evolution explain a sequential explosion? This little bug messes with all the theories of evolution. There is no way a slow, gradual process is going to produce this bug. There is no way even the newest theories of evolution like punctuated equilibrium, which means evolution happens very fast, well, there's now way that would explain this little bug. I began to realize "How could this particular little animal, for instance, evolve? It needed all of it's parts, it needed everything there all at once, or you just don't have the animal." And my stomach started to churn--If I really want to be honest. And my wife will tell you my stomach churned for five years: It took a five year struggle for me to begin to flip the way I think. From thinking in an evolutionary way to thinking in more, "This animal, or little creature, little bug, whatever, was created, uh, fully formed, just like it is." Because that went against everything I'd ever learned."

Comment: 1st comment:-
This is a Straw man argument, it misrepresents the way bombardier beetles actually are (just one example is the explosion happens inside the beetle and does not harm it), see Bombardier Beetles and the Argument of Design for a long and serious explanation about the real biology of Bombardier beetles and how their evolution is not a problem for real scientists.

Comment: 2nd comment:-
EvoWiki has dealt with this problem, see Bombardier beetle a section is copied below:-

However, researchers have shown that creationist claims were based on a misreading of research and that the chemical weapon involves minor alterations from systems in other, less noxious beetles. This lends weight to the idea that this beetle has diverged from other species as a product of evolution by natural selection.

In one demonstration, documented in the book The Blind Watchmaker, biologist Richard Dawkins mixed together hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide in an artificial environment. No reaction occurred, a catalyst was required. Dawkins' point was that as the beetle's defensive mechanism evolved, the intermediate stages would not explode - the chemicals would not react without a catalyst.

Crossfade back to Hames back at the zoo.

Hames "Did you know the world's strongest animal is actually the beetle? In fact, in one test the Rhinoceros Beetle carried over eight-hundred and fifty times its own weight on its back. That would be like me trying to carry a hundred and thirty thousand pounds! I don't think so! Now let's take a look at the world's tallest animal.

Argument Against Evolution of the Giraffe

Martin "The bull giraffe is about eighteen feet tall. In order to get blood up that long, skinny neck, against gravity, the bull giraffe has to have a powerful pump, and that's his heart, and the heart of a bull giraffe can be as much as two and a half feet long. Big, powerful pump. Now, as he's going along here living his life, everything's just fine, but all of a sudden this eighteen foot tall creature decides "I need a drink of water." So he bends his head down to get a drink of water. Now we have a problem. Because now this powerful pump, instead of pumping against gravity, is pumping with gravity. And so the heart gives a mighty squeeze, and the blood shoots down his neck, hits his brain, and bursts his brain. And so now he just blew his brains out. Okay, so he's dying and he must be thinking to himself, "I need to evolve something here to take care of my problem. When I get a drink of water, I blow my brains out." Of course, we know dead creatures don't evolve, but he doesn't blow his brains out. Because as he bends his head down, there are, like, little spigots, in his artery that goes up the neck--little valves, and they close. But the last pump is beyond the last valve and it's enough to burst the little arterioles in his brain, but it doesn't go into his brain. The last pump kinda goes "Vromp!" underneath the brain into like a sponge. And this sponge just gently expands and he hasn't blown his brains out, he gets his drink of water, and now he sees a zebra kinda running up from this side, and he just ignores it. But he sees a lion coming up from this side "Whoa the lion wants to eat me, I gotta get outta here!" Now how does he know the difference by the way? Evolutionist can't explain that to us. But the fact is here comes this lion. he's going to eat the giraffe, and so the giraffe, uh, jumps up he runs about five steps, passes out. Not enough oxygen to his brain. While he's there, passed out, the lion is eating him. He must be thinking "I've got to evolve something here, I've got this problem, I pass out when I get up too fast!" But he doesn't, of course. Well, Why? Because God made him, so that when he begins to bring his head up, the little spigots, the little valves, in the artery open, the sponge under the brain gently squeezes that last little pump of oxygenated blood up into his brain. There are little valves in the brain that goes down the neck, they close, and by the time he's up and running, everything is fine, his blood pressure is fine, and he does just fine. Well, how would that evolve? He needs all of those parts, all there, all at the same time, all at once, or he's dead. And so I think the giraffe is another example of a designer. He need a designer to design him just like he is."

Comment: 1st Comment

Talk Origin explains this citing Charles Darwin, see Giraffe Neck and Blood Pressure
Darwin dealt with this in 1868. All the necessary features in a giraffe’s neck would have evolved progressively and at the same time. In ancestors to the modern giraffe the neck would have been shorter so partially evolved valves and a slightly larger heart would have been sufficient as would a less evolved network of blood vessels in the head. As the giraffe’s neck evolved to get progressively longer the other supporting features would have evolved progressively also.

All vertebrates feature a heart, and it is fairly easy to imagine one evolving in size as the demands upon it were increased in each generation (see Response 2).

The net of capillaries is termed the 'intracranial carotid rete mirabile', and not unique to the giraffe. All members of Artiodactyla (such as sheep, cattle, camels, pigs etc) have such a feature, and it is thought to function in cooling the blood.

Valves of the jugular vein are found in all mammals to prevent backflow of blood, as without them none could circulate blood to and from the head effectively. In fact, all veins, except for cranial veins, feature venous valves.

Large changes that develop features in an organism, such as that of a long neck, do not happen all at once. The neck could have grown progressively longer through a series of small changes over many generations. This would, instead of making a large heart imperative immediately, gradually increase the usefulness and thus the need for a large heart, leaving a large amount of time for a larger heart and a better circulatory system to evolve along with that of a progressively longer and longer neck.

"They could not have evolved gradually." - They could have evolved just as gradually as the length of the neck did, from structures that have almost none of these special properties, through structures that have less-efficient grades of these properties, to become structures that have all of these special properties.

Hames "The tallest giraffe know was named George. He resided at the Chester Zoo in England. George was twenty feet tall to the tips of his horns, which are actually called ossicomes. Here's another interesting giraffe fact: Giraffes have no vocal cords. No here's a bird you'll see around your house, but after taking a closer look at it, you might find it unbelievable.

Argument Against Evolution of the Woodpecker

Martin "The woodpecker is a very special little bird. The beak of a woodpecker is, like, industrial strength. It is stronger than other bird's beaks. He has special feet. Most birds have three toes out the front, one toe out the back, where the woodpecker has two toes out the front, two toes out the back. And that's so he can climb around on a tree trunk--a vertical tree trunk---right side up, upside down, sideways, he can crawl anyway he wants to. He has special tail feathers. His tail feathers are different than other birds' tail feathers; they're more resilient, they're spongy, and they're very strong and tough, because he tripods himself with his two feet and his tail feathers. So he grabs a hold of that tree, fans out his tail feathers, and then bangs his head into the tree. now you would think that a woodpecker would go home every night and say to Mrs. Woodpecker, 'Oh, I got the headache. I was banging my head on a tree all day.' But he doesn't. Why? Well, 'cause God made him with special equipment. For instance, between his beak and his skull there's a piece of cartilage--it acts a shock absorber. His skull is the thickest bone, per body weight, of any creature. As a matter of fact, brain surgeons study the brains of woodpeckers, how they're hooked in there and everything to help them with, like, trauma people, in accidents, that they need to put their brains back in there, and so they study woodpeckers. The woodpecker, with his strong skull, and his shock absorber, and his strong beak, and his tail feathers, and his feet, he's all ready to go except for one thing. Once he drills his hole, he's gotta get that bug outta the tree, 'cause that's lunch. Right, well how's he gonna do that? Well most birds, their tongue goes right to the tip of the beak. A woodpecker's tongue goes as much as ten inches out of his beak. Now, why? Well 'cause he's going to drill the hole, find the bug tunnel down in the tree, stick his tongue down in the tunnel, and drag the bug out. Now you would have to say, 'Could I stick my tongue down a hole in a tree, and drag a bug out?' Of course not! Now, how does the woodpecker do that? Well, God made the woodpecker with little barbs on the tip of his tongue, and he will literally stab that bug larvae down in there because it doesn't want to come out, but in case that's not enough, he has a little glue factory in his tongue that manufactures exactly, precisely the right glue to stick to the bug, but it doesn't stick to his beak. And so he pulls that bug into his mouth. Now we have a problem, if evolution is true. Let's say over hundreds of thousands of years, this woodpecker got all of this equipment, and then he glues his tongue to a bug and he swallows the bug, what just happened to his tongue? He just swallowed his tongue! bleeh He dies, he just strangled himself. But he doesn't, why? Well, because as he brings the bug into his mouth he has another little factory that manufactures the solvent to dissolve the glue. So he dissolves the glue, loosens up the bug, swallows the bug, God made him that way! Woodpeckers, when they peck, they open their eyes between each peck, and they aim their beak--they focus, they aim their beak, they close their eyes, and then they hit the tree. So, you hear a woodpecker out there, he's going br-br-br-br br-br-br-brevery time you hear that br-br-br-br he opens his eyes, focuses, aims his beak, hits the tree. Why? Well, they used to think it was just to keep the wood chips out. But now the scientists have measured the force of the impact of the woodpecker's head against the tree, and the force is so great that if he did not close his eyes, he would pop his eyeballs out. So I would say, have you ever seen a blind woodpecker? No, they never miss, the never miss! Okay? Now, one special woodpecker, the European Green Woodpecker, I think he's unique in all the animal kingdom. I don't know for sure, but I think he might be. His tongue is different than any other tongue, as far as I know. Our tongue starts in the back of our throat, comes up and out the front. His tongue starts in the back of his throat, goes down the throat, comes out the back of his neck, up over the top of his head--it's under the skin--comes out a little hole between his eyes, goes in one of his nostrils, and then comes out of his beak. And you have to say, "Now, how does that evolve?" I've asked evolutionists that question, I've said, "Now, you tell me how and where did that tongue come from?" They don't have a clue. They can't tell me. I'm sayin', "Well, you're telling me that this bird evolved from some other creature, but there's no other creature that we know of with a tongue like that. How did that happen?" They don't have any idea. So what could I say, as a creationist? I would say God made that little woodpecker, and I think he made that woodpecker to challenge the evolutionary community, because as they study that little bird, they know there is no way this little thing could evolve. But, it goes right back to that Romans 1 passage, (Romans 1:18-19 displayed "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be know of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it onto them.") that as men study the creation, as they study what God has made, because they are unrighteous, they will suppress evidence. They will hold back evidence. And I think that's exactly what happened. I think there are very bright people who study science and do a good job of it, but all of a sudden they get to a point where they have to decide: Did this thing happen over long periods of time somehow? Or, boy, it sure looks like it could have happened bang! just like it is. And then, if they discover, hey I have no way of describing this thing in terms of evolutionary science, they're faced with the other option. Which is maybe a designer and a creator, and they say " I don't want to go that way. Okay? So they suppress that evidence. And so many of the things that I study, we had to search just to find information on them, Because they are not in the textbooks. They just don't put them in! Because they have no way to explain it. And so they just ignore it."

Comment: The woodpecker certainly has many remarkable adaptations, [1] but working out how the woodpecker might have evolved is easy. The ancestor of the woodpecker probably found insects to eat in many places including perhaps under the bark of trees or in soft, decaying wood. There are many insects in soft, decaying wood and at that stage ancestral woodpeckers did not stress their brains when they pecked. The various adaptations to pecking hard wood and climbing trees evolved gradually as the woodpeckers gradually developed the ability to get insects from progressively harder wood.